Foreign Policy

9-11-12: US Embassies Attacked, FOUR American Dead, Obama Team Slams Romney

Nothing is so clear as to the focus of the Obama campaign as their reaction to today’s attacks on American embassies that have resulted in evacuations and the death of one State department official, and 3 other Americans. For hours report afterreport came in about the attacks, and no word from the Obama camp was forthcoming.

Before the attacks, the US Embassy in Cairo knew there might be demonstrations against them, and released a statement apologizing for any offense against Muslims by anyone ever:

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

After the attacks, they stood by their condemnation of those insulting their attackers. Then the White House pulled the rug from under them and said their condemnation was not supported by the administration.So then the embassy deleted their statements.

“We are shocked that, at a time when the United States of America is confronting the tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya, Governor Romney would choose to launch a political attack,” Obama’s campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt said in a statement.

Just incredible.

UPDATE:

This was one of our Ambassador’s the murdered Americans, Sean Smith’slast messages before he was murdered:

(12:54:09 PM) vile_rat: assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures

“Vile rat” was his gaming screenname. Is this evidence that the attack was premeditated and not spontaneous? This message is being reported as having been sent hours before the mob arrived, and there are reports that Libyan guards helped the protesters find the evacuating staff.

The Brotherhood calls “for peaceful protests on Friday outside all the main mosques in all of Egypt’s provinces to denounce offenses to religion and to the Prophet,” the Muslim Brotherhood’s Secretary General Mahmud Hussein said in a statement.

He also urged all “national forces to join the protests.”

The Muslim Brotherhood, from which President Mohammed Morsi emerged, is the largest and most organized political force in the country.

No condemnation of the murder of our American citizens. Just more chaos…

Dozens of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip burned American flags Wednesday and chanted “Death to America,” protesting an American film that mocks the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. The protest Wednesday in Gaza City was sponsored by supporters of the Popular Resistance Committees, a militant group aligned with the ruling Hamas movement…

In Gaza City, some protesters carried swords, axes and black flags. They also used knives to cut posters of Morris Sadek, the Egyptian-born Christian who has promoted the film, which was produced by an American-Israeli and also promoted by American pastor Terry Jones.

They chanted, “Shame on everyone who insults the prophet.”

Hamas, the larger militant group that governs Gaza, also condemned the film.

Its religious affairs minister, Ismail Radwan, called it an “insult to the millions of Muslims all over the world.”

The American embassies in Algeria and Tunisia, both of which border Libya, warned Wednesday of possible protests.

In an emergency message, the U.S. Embassy in Tunis warned Americans to avoid crowded places, saying that even gatherings “intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence.”

The producer of the video that started this murderous riot has been reported to be a “Sam Bacile,” including quotes attributed to him. Now, it appears that it’s a pseudonym,and his real identity is unknown [emphasis added]:

…I just called a man named Steve Klein — a self-described militant Christian activist in Riverside, California (whose actual business, he said, is in selling “hard-to-place home insurance”), who has been described in multiple media accounts as a consultant to the film.

Klein told me that Bacile, the producer of the film, is not Israeli, and most likely not Jewish, as has been reported, and that the name is, in fact, a pseudonym. He said he did not know “Bacile”‘s real name. He said Bacile contacted him because he leads anti-Islam protests outside of mosques and schools, and because, he said, he is a Vietnam veteran and an expert on uncovering al Qaeda cells in California. “After 9/11 I went out to look for terror cells in California and found them, piece of cake. Sam found out about me. The Middle East Christian and Jewish communities trust me.”

He said the man who identified himself as Bacile asked him to help make the anti-Muhammad film. When I asked him to describe Bacile, he said: “I don’t know that much about him. I met him, I spoke to him for an hour. He’s not Israeli, no. I can tell you this for sure, the State of Israel is not involved, Terry Jones (the radical Christian Quran-burning pastor) is not involved. His name is a pseudonym. All these Middle Eastern folks I work with have pseudonyms. I doubt he’s Jewish. I would suspect this is a disinformation campaign.”

I asked him who he thought Sam Bacile was. He said that there are about 15 people associated with the making of the film, “Nobody is anything but an active American citizen. They’re from Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, they’re some that are from Egypt. Some are Copts but the vast majority are Evangelical.”

What are we to make of Steve Klein’s assertions? I’m taking everything about this strange and horrible episod [sic] with a grain of salt, though I will say that I haven’t seen any proof yet that Sam Bacile is an actual Israeli Jew, or that the name is anything other than a pseudonym. More to come, undoubtedly.

This is amazing… what could be the real intention of whoever was behind this film?